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From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
An organisation known as DoTheDream Youth Development Initiative has used the 11th United Nations Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) Forum to demand concrete solutions.
It also unveiled a 10-megawatt solar pilot as a replicable model for the Global South.
The high-level side event, ‘She Powers the Planet: Girls in Energy at the Frontline — Innovate, Illuminate, Inspire’, co-organised with the Permanent Mission of Nigeria, CoNGO, the Mactay Foundation (IFTDO) and Servas International, described the continent’s electricity shortfall as a structural injustice that disproportionately affects women and girls.
“Over 600 million people in Africa lack access to modern electricity, and women and girls shoulder the heaviest burdens of that deficit,” said DoTheDream YDI co-founder, Ola Oluyinka.
Speakers listed the consequences of energy poverty, including unpowered clinics, poorly lit schools, constrained female entrepreneurship and digital exclusion.
Backing the initiative, Minister-Counsellor Otaigbe Irusota of Nigeria’s Permanent Mission to the UN linked affordable clean energy under SDG 7 with gender equality under SDG 5. He cited Nigeria’s National Energy Transition Plan and the deployment of over 1,000 solar mini-grids by the Rural Electrification Agency.
DoTheDream Founder and CEO, Adebusuyi Olumadewa, unveiled an operational blueprint centred on the Girls in Energy Village and Girls in Energy Fund.
He outlined five pillars: STEM pathways for girls, a community-owned 10MW renewable mini-grid with at least 75 per cent local female participation, youth innovation competitions, capacity-building camps and access to global capital.
“Our 10MW pilot in Ayedun, Kwara State, will demonstrate that energy justice can be delivered at scale and that girls must be central to that delivery,” Olumadewa said.
The forum ended with commitments to launch the Ayedun mini-grid, establish a Girls in Energy Learning Annexe, seek policy integration through the Federal Executive Council, activate the Girls in Energy Village and operationalise the Girls in Energy Fund.
